What is my payment obligation to nanny who lied, did not perform duties, and walked out? (LONG)

[Anonymous]

We recently hired a woman who came with good professional references. She interviewed well and started out very professional. After two days, she tells us on Saturday that she's having health problems and won't continue with us, but would continue providing some care over the next two weeks.

On Monday, she asks me for my WiFi password so she can work on email to make appointments. It is a 50 digit random PW so I couldn't easily provide but told her to go ahead and use our family IPad. On Tuesday, she tells our back up sitter that she probably won't be there next week (but never mentions this to us).

On Wednesday at around 8am, I learn from my 3yr old that the nanny had taken our two young children (3 and 1) to nanny's house. (3yr old happened to say in front of nanny and me that she liked nanny's nice kitty at her house, at which time nanny immediately explained how they'd just stopped by there for a minute. Keep in mind nanny's house is not near any kid activity, on the way to anywhere, nor did nanny ask in advance, mention, or otherwise indicate she'd take kids anywhere. 3 yr old later tells me nanny was working on her computer.) Nanny had asked me earlier in the day if I was working from home that day, which I was (same as every Wed), and had reacted like it wasn't expected and it somehow changed her plans.

At about 9:30, nanny tells me "I'm sorry, I have to leave" and gathers her things to go. But not before asking to be paid for the last 2 days. I was in the middle of an actual work day and she just decided she would walk out, leaving me without child care. I now suspect she was planning another "field trip" and realized he couldn't get away with it if I was there.

During the short time she worked for us, she never did the other many duties that were agree upon as part of her job. Never touched kid laundry, I came home to a messy kitchen, kid stuff all over. She just didn't do the job.

What do I owe this person? I have not been able to convey above her high level of drama or some of the other details that would make you shake your head. In my opinion, she did not perform the full job and does not deserve the full hourly rate. She also decided to take my chldren (without my consent or knowledge) to go conduct personal business. No idea if she that just on Tues or also on Mon. I do not believe she should get paid the full amount she would have earned had she actually been doing the job. Opinions please!

[Anonymous]

OP here. "Many duties" with the job should have been "nanny duties". Kid laundry, keep kitchen cleaned up after use, keep kid stuff under control. No other housekeeping, etc.

[Anonymous]

As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

Well said!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

To make the analogy more accurate: if you were at a restaurant, ordered and entree, salad, and desert, but only got the entree, should you be charged for all three? What if the waiter actually decided to eat a bit of the entree because he was hungry at the time, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking? Still okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

To make the analogy more accurate: if you were at a restaurant, ordered and entree, salad, and desert, but only got the entree, should you be charged for all three? What if the waiter actually decided to eat a bit of the entree because he was hungry at the time, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking? Still okay?

Nope sorry that's not making it more accurate, and perhaps my example was not directly analogous. You pay a nanny for her time. You do not get to deduct from her wages because you're unsatisfied with her performance. Its just not the way this works. Again, sorry you got burned. Pay the woman what you owe her and stop trying to punish her. Put your energy into finding a good nanny and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

To make the analogy more accurate: if you were at a restaurant, ordered and entree, salad, and desert, but only got the entree, should you be charged for all three? What if the waiter actually decided to eat a bit of the entree because he was hungry at the time, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking? Still okay?

That's not what happened here. You ordered a meal that came with an entree, a salad, and a dessert, you didn't like what you ordered, but you ate it instead of sending it back. Now you don't want to pay for the food you ate. So no, not okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As shitty as the situation is/was for you, you don't get to arbitrarily withhold payment because you weren't satisfied. Your recourse would have been to terminate her, and she has already taken care of that. Pay her for the time she worked and be grateful you dodged a potentially much larger bullet. If you do not pay, prepare to find yourself under scrutiny by the labor board at the very least, and very likely paying her wages plus penalties in the end.

I paid her the full rate for the first two days. Have not yet paid her for the final two days. I do intend to pay her something, but I am thinking about whether it will be the full wage for all hours she "worked".

You still need to pay her the full wage. You don't really get to decide after the fact that she wasn't " worth" what you had agreed upon. If you were dissatisfied with her performance, you should have asked her not to come back. Withholding pay is illegal.

+1 You have to pay her for the hours she worked at the rate you agreed to, no ifs ands or buts. You don't get to pay less than your bill at a restaraunt because you weren't happy with the service or your meal choice, and it works the same way here. If you didn't want her to keep working, you should have told her not to come back, but because she came to work, you're on the hook for those hours. Sorry.

To make the analogy more accurate: if you were at a restaurant, ordered and entree, salad, and desert, but only got the entree, should you be charged for all three? What if the waiter actually decided to eat a bit of the entree because he was hungry at the time, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking? Still okay?

Doesn't matter. At the end of the day, you are paying your nanny for the hours she physically spends in charge of your children, regardless of if she fulfills the rest of her duties. Like a PP said, if you didn't like her work you could let her go, but you can't go back and decide you'll just pay her less. Trust me, you have 100% of my sympathy here. This sounds like a terrible experience and I'm appalled that a "professional" nanny would act like this, but you have to pay her the hourly rate. Just calculate down to the nearest 15 minutes and don't pay her a cent extra. Sorry this happened OP.

[Anonymous]

I would pay her. I would also call her professional references (assuming that they were not fakes, like her counsins paying former MBs) and tell them how horribly unprofessional this person was.

If I am providing a reference for somebody, for sure I would like to know if that person behaved like that, since I would not want to spend my name for such a person

[Anonymous]

Pay her for the two days, just to keep things easy for you. Legally, whenever she was "on the clock," so-to-speak, you incurred obligation. And even though you can construct a good common sense argument for her not performing her duties and not deserving it, its simply far simpler to pay her and be done with it. We're only talking abut 2 days of pay here. (Likewise, I bet she doesn't come after you for the money even if you don't pay because its not worth the aggravation to her -- but why flirt with this? Just put it all behind you.)

Naturally, you should not pay a cent for any time she wasn't in charge of the kids.

Clearly, her behavior was dodgy at best, so you should wash your hands of all of it. And hopefully she knows better than to use you as a reference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would pay her. I would also call her professional references (assuming that they were not fakes, like her counsins paying former MBs) and tell them how horribly unprofessional this person was.

If I am providing a reference for somebody, for sure I would like to know if that person behaved like that, since I would not want to spend my name for such a person

This would be skirting some serious ethical and maybe legal lines. If you don't want to employ someone that is one issue, to sabotage their chances of future employment is just wrong. If a nanny has good references, they must have done something to earn them and an isolated incident is not a valid reason to jeopardize the rest of their career. Grow up.

[Anonymous]

I'd wait and see if she contacts you for the additional money.
Was she paid under the table? If I was feeling very spiteful I might accidentally make a math mistake when figuring out her pay.